Ever wish you had a robotic companion, like Joaquin Phoenix in “her” or Ryan Gosling
in Blade Runner 2049?
AI technology is advancing so rapidly that you might believe we will soon be living the
solitary, yet connected lives Alex Garland showed us in Ex Machina.
Humans fear they will struggle to keep up, but the current trends of voice recognition
artificial intelligence can be used incredibly effectively in marketing….if you know how
to master it.
Voice Search was definitely a hot new trend going into 2018, with more and more users
adopting the technology into their homes.
While Amazon doesn’t disclose sales of their Echo products, which feature their AI Voice
Assistant ‘Alexa’, we do know that ‘tens of millions of units’ were sold over the
2017 holiday period, and that the Amazon Alexa app took the number 1 spot on both the US
Google Play and iPhone App Stores on Christmas Day.
So, is Alexa’s integration to daily life setting the grander stage for a new robotic
era, where the future will be unrecognisable to what we once knew?
At its core, Alexa offers simple voice search, not dissimilar to Apple’s Siri, or any other
voice-enabled assistant.
You can speak your search terms instead of type them, which should result in more efficiency,
as long as your Alexa is trained to understand your voice.
Humans generally can speak two to three times faster than they write, so it stands to reason
that unless there are voice errors, productivity will be improved by getting the answer you
need, quicker.
But the future of Alexa is not simply set in searching, making calls or pulling up information.
The Internet of Things marketplace over the last few years has introduced many smart devices
- internet-enabled home appliances or products that can be controlled directly through Amazon
Alexa, completely transforming how we live our lives.
The futuristic ideas shown in classic movies like Back To The Future 2 are now either in
the home or on the horizon.
“Alexa, see who’s ringing my doorbell” “Alexa, turn my heating up”
“Alexa, play jazz in the bedroom, and progressive rock in the lounge.”
But the real future gems lie in what’s known as the Alexa Skills marketplace.
A hot phrase at the last CES was “it works with Alexa”, meaning the designers of whichever
smart-product had built a search query or algorithm that helps their product or service
communicate with Alexa’s interface.
This enables Alexa to order an Uber, or a Domino’s pizza, or whatever the developers
can dream up.
This is a marketer’s dream - you can now put your service directly in the homes of
customers: they think it, speak it, it happens.
It’s the ultimate in impulsive point-of-sale placement.
The savvy companies are the ones who have a skill programmed, ready to meet that demand.
It’s easy to start seeing the Alexa and Google Home developments as the cornerstone
of some fantastic Jetsons-style future, where humans interact with their technology in a
naturalistic human way.
Talking out loud with commands and conversations may lead us to feel we are in the dawn of
the robot golden age, yet in essence all we are getting is an new way to instruct our
devices.
In the same way that smart-phone apps are really just a reorganized, mobile-accessible
version of a website, calling in data from it, and displaying within a native app, the
Alexa voice-commands are just accessing this data through the spoken word.
It’s not going to lock the bay doors on you like HAL.
It’s not really a robot...
Unless, of course, you’re a child, born into this digital era, and this is all you
know.
In recent studies child psychologists found that children develop social and moral relationships
with devices such as Amazon Alexa.
For some children, Alexa is a female person that lives inside an Echo, who responds to
their constant questioning.
To them, it’s not just a different method of data delivery, it’s a whole interactive
being.
As such, Alexa is effectively personified to them, and may affect how they talk to other
humans around them.
It sets a precedent.
After all, Alexa does not get tired of being asked ‘what’ or ‘why’.
Alexa does not respond differently when being shouted at, so it may give children a false
interpretation of how best to act socially.
Furthermore, one of the first relationships children are developing, is with a brand.
Creepy much?
Even more so, when you realize Alexa is an “always listening” device, that only responds
when it hears certain trigger words.
A bit like that snoozing uncle who conveniently wakes when you change the channel...
This type of concern has also given rise to the development department at Alexa taking
the personification more seriously.
For instance Alexa now will not respond to sexist language, by going into “disengagement
mode” following reprogramming, which Heather Zorn, director of the Alexa engagement department,
described as representing “Alexa in a positive way for everyone, especially for girls and
women.”
For now, Alexa seems to be able to improve productivity in life on one hand, and on another,
it offers a plethora of time-passing “skills” that marketers can continue adding to, ever-expanding
Alexa’s capabilities.
However, the future of this smart voice-technology being integrated into real, functioning robotic
machines, that can replicate tasks that humans do, is still a long way off.
Until then, you’ll have to be satisfied with asking Alexa to order your groceries,
and switch off your lights when you go to work… because she probably won’t be doing
your work for you.
Unless, of course, you have one of those robo-replaceable jobs.
Food for thought.